When the CEO of Alexi set out to hire their first product manager, the objective was clear: ship the next version of the product on more advanced LLM models and support the company’s growth from Series A to B. What unfolded was broader and ultimately more impactful.
Walid Koleila joined Alexi, an AI automation platform for law firms, as the company’s first Product Manager and later stepped into the VP of Product & Design role. As he got started, it became clear that the opportunity extended beyond the roadmap. It included strengthening how the company operated so it could keep pace with both customer demand and rapidly evolving AI technology.
Decision-making needed to move faster. Feedback loops between product, sales, and marketing needed to be tighter. Shipping the next version of the product mattered, and so did building an organization that could continuously learn and adapt.
His experience offers a practical look at what founders discover when hiring their first product manager and how to set the role up for success.
Clarifying the Moment for Hiring Your First Product Manager
For many founders, hiring a first product manager comes alongside growth milestones. A funding round closes. The team expands. Conversations shift from validating the product to scaling it.
Walid’s advice is to start with clarity. “I ask founders: what is the specific problem you’re trying to solve? And if that person delivers, what should change in the business? What do you want to see improving?”
Clear answers create a strong foundation for hiring your first product manager and help align expectations from day one.
The context at Alexi illustrates this well. The company had reached product market fit with its legal research product and had just closed its funding round. The team was growing, a board had formed, and attention was turning toward scaling. At the same time, Alexi was building on AI models that continued to improve rapidly. Product market fit was something to continuously refine as the technology advanced.
Aligning Immediate Priorities with Long-Term Growth
Walid describes the importance of balancing immediate priorities with longer-term thinking when hiring your first product manager.
“The founder is thinking about the problems they need to solve right now. The business also benefits from someone thinking about what it needs to scale over time. Both perspectives matter.”
At Alexi, they were looking for a product manager with the judgment to help guide the company through its next phase of growth. As Walid got started, part of the work involved strengthening how the organization operated. That included faster decision-making, tighter collaboration across teams, and clear ways to stay close to customers, all while evolving the product and refining the go-to-market motion.
“It’s not just about one initiative,” Walid says. “The product becomes part of a broader system. As a product manager, you keep that whole system in view.” This is where product often has its greatest impact. It supports how the company builds, learns, and moves forward.
Building a Strong Founder and Product Manager Partnership
One of the most meaningful themes Walid shares is how the founder and product manager relationship develops after hiring your first product manager.
Founders bring deep intuition from building the early product. They have spent years speaking with customers and making decisions that shaped the direction of the company. Bringing in a product manager creates an opportunity to expand that perspective while keeping the original vision intact.
Founders can sometimes find themselves jumping into product decisions, not because they don’t trust their hire, but because they have been so close to the product for so long. What helps is spending time together to understand the original vision and how decisions have been made. That shared understanding created trust and alignment.
Walid highlights three elements that help the relationship thrive:
Explicit decision rights. Clearly define the scope of ownership and align on objectives so everyone understands how decisions will be made.
Public backing. When decisions are made, align as managers in front of the team. Discuss differences privately, then move forward together so the organization sees clarity.
Open conversations. Recognize that this transition represents growth for both founder and company. Honest dialogue helps navigate new ways of working.
What to Look For When Hiring Your First Product Manager
Walid emphasizes that the right hire is about more than experience.
Trust. Can this person carry the vision forward and make thoughtful decisions across customer conversations, team discussions, and product tradeoffs?
Chemistry. Startups require close collaboration. Spending time getting to know each other helps ensure you can navigate both exciting moments and challenging ones together.
Curiosity. A genuine interest in the customers and the problem space drives deeper understanding over time. At Alexi, Walid found energy in seeing how lawyers were adopting AI and exploring new ways of working. That curiosity supported meaningful progress.
Supporting the First Product Manager After They Join
Hiring your first product manager is the beginning of a new phase. Share context openly. Much of a company’s history lives in conversations, decisions, and lessons learned along the way. Passing that context along accelerates impact.
Provide support. Your product manager will make important calls. Standing behind those decisions builds confidence across the team and reinforces alignment. Then give them room to lead.
Walid’s journey at Alexi, from first PM to VP of Product & Design, shows how the role can grow alongside the company when the foundation is strong. It reflects a partnership built on clarity, trust, and shared ambition.
Hiring your first product manager is an opportunity to shape how your company builds and scales in the years ahead. We help founders find the right person for their stage and set the role up for success from day one.
Book a call to learn how we help founders hire their first product leader.